Meet Maker Nikki Ebright from Shiny Garden

By judym, Oct 11, 2017

Nikki Ebright is Executive Director of Shiny Garden, a nonprofit which promotes diversity at a variety of fandom events such as WhimsyCon (a steampunk & costuming event), Myths and Legends Con (celebrating our modern myths and legends), and HexaCon (tabletop gaming).Learn more at shinygarden.org.

What is your earliest memory of being a maker?

I remember taking apart a watch as a kid, and being very disappointed that I couldn’t get it back together and working.

What do you like most about being a maker?

For me, being a maker means creating experiences for people. I love being able to see how being a part of something can transform a person’s life.

What’s your big, audacious goal?

To have experiences happening year round that connect people in unexpected, positive ways and create new ways for people to understand one another.

Getting the word out to people doesn’t seem to come naturally for me, so coming up with ways to reach people and let them know about events, like MALCon, or the mission of Shiny Garden is something that I’m working on all the time.

Now that we’re a board-run nonprofit we have more people focused on improving our visibility and we keep coming up with more and better ideas!

What is one thing about you that would surprise people?

I don’t talk much about myself but if when someone asks I’m very open about sharing things about my personal interests, hobbies, etc.

Anything else you’d like people to know about you and your organization?

Pretty much everyone has privilege in some way. I believe it’s my duty to use whatever privilege that I have to help connect people and to make the world a better place.

With Shiny Garden, we are focusing on making our events a place where everyone, especially underrepresented communities, feel welcome and included.

When we see get to know people as individuals we realize how alike we are. This helps us make better decisions in constructive, mutually beneficial ways.

Shiny Garden will be doing interactive crafting demonstrations and make-and-takes at the 2017 Denver Maker Faire on October 14-15 at the Denver Mart. For more information and tickets go to denver.makerfaire.com/faq